The Best White Elephant Gift Is a Spatula

If you, like hundreds of office workers across the country, have been roped into getting a gift for a White Elephant game—a.k.a. "Dirty Santa," a.k.a Yankee Swap, a.k.a. that weird game where someone can steal your present and leave you with that semi-ironic CD of Jewel's greatest hits—you're probably wondering what you bring that is under the $20 limit and isn't something completely useless. There's always a bottle of booze or wine, but not everyone drinks (I know, I know) and guessing whether a hip flask of not-great vodka or a large bottle of Yellowtail chardonnay will go over better with a large crowd of people is sort of a losing game. A pecan pie is nice, but what if it ends in the lap of someone with a nut allergy? Step away from the scented candle section of Target, and listen to me: the best White Elephant gift is a spatula.

Before you howl me out of the room, consider that I'm not just talking about any spatula. I'm talking about the GIR all-silicone Ultimate Spatula. This, my friends, is the cadillac of spatulas. It's heat proof up to 464 degrees and heat resistant up to 550 degrees, which is very very hot. It comes in an array of fun rainbow colors as well as your more sensible grey and black, and it's absolutely one of the most used tools in my kitchen. The spatula edge is flexible enough to make it excellent for scraping the sides of a bowl of batter, but firm enough to make it the tool I most use for making eggs. It's all one piece of silicone, which means that you don't run into any of the cleaning conundrums of spatulas with a removable head. The Sweethome hipped me to this model last year, and I ended up liking it so much that I also bought the smaller version (ideal for scraping out the bullet blender I use to make hummus) and the flipper (for all your flipping needs!).

And best of all, it's something that's both incredibly useful and fun, but still just $17 on Amazon prime. Trust me: Everyone needs a spatula, even if it doesn't seem like the most exciting gift in the pile of mystery gifts. Whoever winds up with it will thank you, eventually, even if they were secretly coveting that bottle of Yellowtail.